Gnomes

Inventors of the world, if it's mechanized, or could be mechanized, it's the gnomes that the other races turn to. If it weren't for the gnomes, dwarfs would still be mining with picks and buckets, instead of their steam drills and lifters. Humans would be exploring on foot rather than on ships and with spyglasses. And elves would by studying the skies with their naked eyes and creating their magical wonders with their hands, rather than capturing images of the night sky in stunning detail on picture plates and mass producing their magical wonders through use of the mechanical assemblers.

While the most friendly with the other nations, they are also the most insular, refusing to get caught up in the other nations politics. They seem content to be left alone in exchange for providing the world with their inventions. There are gnomes in the other nations on both continents, but they are almost always there as official representatives of Gildenstar and its industries, rather than simple merchants, though those do exist.

Gildenstar is the only nation to be entirely devoid of kobolds, a fact made obvious in their larger cities where sewage and waste management is handled mechanically rather than through the use of kobold labor like the other nations. The kobolds are just as happy to leave the gnomes to themselves as they still blame the gnomes deity for the imprisonment of their own deity. Whenever gnomes and kobolds are in close proximity to one another, harassment from one side or the other inevitably occurs. Gnome embassies always require their host nation to guarantee a kobold free zone for their emplacements before sending any representatives.

Kobolds are generally welcomed by most cities as the kobolds are more than happy to create sewage lines and handle waste management in exchange for the lands just below the surface for their own warrens. This is too shallow to conflict with dwarven claims and so avoids any land conflicts.